The front door opens, revealing my date, but her figure is obscured by a screen door that remains closed. She pushes it open and comes down the walk. She’s lookin’ foxy. I look in my bike’s small, handle-bar-mounted rear view mirror and check my hair. It looks like absolute hell. Just as I left it. Good. Any semblance of order may diminish my rough and tumble, too-busy-thinking-to-adequately-bathe, rugged look. I want this girl to think that my silence tonight is due to my genius mind traipsing through a cognitive labyrinth, rather than me just wondering what letter of the alphabet her breasts most resemble (You ever seen an”x”? If you have, send pix plz. :P).

“Is this…” she looks at the driveway, and her car that sits parked there. “How are we getting to the restaurant?”

I look surprised at her confusion. “You’re going to trot along side me as I ride here.” I ring the bell again. She jumps a bit at the brash tones and smiles uncomfortably, as if to convince me with her smile that yes, I am kidding. I am. Her smile was right. “Just kidding. You’re going to stand on those awesome foot stands on the rear wheel. I bought them for you.” I give her my big doe eyes, then, remembering that does are females, and that this girl is clearly straight or bi-leaning-straight at least, I give her my buck eyes. All they say is that I want violence and intercourse. Hurriedly, she gets on the back of my bike. “Yippee-ki-yay, whore,” I say.

“What did you just call me?” she asks, but her voice is drowned out by my shrill laugh and incessant bell ringing.

We reach the restaurant, which was actually fairly close to her house, about forty-five minutes later. I had to pull over for something. I thought I saw a baseball in the grass that I wanted. It turned out it was a golf ball. I decided I wanted to see how far I could throw the golf ball. Then I decided that I wanted the golf ball to show my brother later how far I could throw a golf ball. It took us twenty minutes to find it.

The restaurant is a hole in the wall Chinese/Korean/Japanese/this-is-America-it’s-just-called-“Asian”-here restaurant.

“You like the food of the ninja?” I say, bowing slightly.

She laughs.

“Do you?” I ask. I begin demonstrating my kicking and chopping ability in the parking lot.

“I suppose,” she says.

“Good,” I respond, halting my seminar on ass-demolition and stepping closer. “Because I wouldn’t want to have to feed you a,” I do a few chops close to her face, “knuckle sandwich. Those are expensive.”

“Yea. You pay with those in teeth,” I say, then swiftly turn my body and begin walking to the door.

The service at the restaurant is terrible. I order a bottle of Shiner and, despite shaking the bottle at the waitress numerous times and raising my eyebrows as if to say “Helloooo,” she still doesn’t give me a refill.

“Then this beer better be free,” I say, casually tossing the bottle over my shoulder.

After dinner, we go to a local watering hole to get a few drinks. The throbbing music pushes us close to one another, my hand resting comfortably at the small of her back. I find a welcome home, speaking softly at her ear, the smell of her perfume and her hair filling me with an excitement and a zest that runs thick through my nose and, like a charge, through my heart and into my gut, warming it.

“Girl I’m on a date with?” I say into her blessed hearing orifice.

“Yes?” she looks up at me expectantly, her mouth slightly open.

“You want to do some Irish car bombs?”

The radiance vanishes from her face. “No, I don’t,” she responds.

“That’s cool,” I say. I leave for eight minutes to do a few car bombs by myself.

My strategy at a bar-date is to get so sloshed that the only my date can tolerate me is to get equally or more sloshed than me. After that, she’ll let me hold her hand no prob. No probz.

Pictured: A cumulative 28% blood:alcohol level.

We walk back to my bike, which, in lieu of a suitable bike rack, I have tied to a vagrant.

“Thank you, vagrant,” I say. “Here is the dollar I promised you.” I hand him a napkin.

Our ride home is jaunty and somewhat illegal. I try to stay off the main roads. After a time, we decide to just walk the bike (safety first) and walk home. Our conversation is light and enjoyable and mostly incoherent.

“Do you like-uh muh bahk?” I ask her at one point.

“I think I’m gnna throw up,” she mutters in response. I smile at her lovingly, my gaze warm with affection. She throws up on my bike.

That is when I decide we will not be making out tonight.

We reach her house and I walk her to her front door. The light above the door casts playful shadows across her face that almost covers up the bits of lo mein stuck to her chin.

“I had a rilly gud time,” she says.

“Me too,” I say.

“Good night.” She tries to kiss me, but I duck away by acting like there’s a terrible sore on her face–to save her feelings.

Looking a bit miffed, she opens up the screen door and unlocks the front door. I step down from the entry way and allow my bike to fall into the dewy grass of her front lawn.

“What’re you doing? Are you leaving your bike here?” she asks, turning the keys in her front door and opening it.

“Nope. Sleepy. I think I’m going to pop a squat right here. Sleep in the yard.”